1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electromechanical protective switching apparatus with remote controlled opening and closing of the contacts.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Such protective switching apparatus are well known. In particular, from patent No. FR-2 573 571, it is known to combine in the same circuit breaking apparatus a protective function in the case of an overcurrent (circuit breaking mode) and a remote opening control function (contactor mode); these protective and control functions are provided respectivey by a free tripping mechanism and by a specific control electromagnet, acting independently on the same set of separable contacts of the apparatus.
Such a device cannot however be readily adapted to a multipole protective switching apparatus with contact bridges because of the volume occupied by the bridges and the contact holding piece which houses the bridges, which volume is added to the volume occupied by the tripping mechanism and the electromagnet.
The same goes for the circuit breaker described in patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,604,596. In this circuit breaker, the plate or the core of a biased electromagnet is connected to an arm carrying a pseudo-fixed contact. This contact may thus be withdrawn by the electromagnet acting in contactor mode without interaction with the abrupt tripping mechanism. The arrangement of such a circuit breaker is however specific to an apparatus with small transverse dimension.
The object of the present invention is in particular to provide a protective switching apparatus with remote controlled opening and closing of at least one contact bridge using a simple arrangement with minimized dimension, particularly in a direction kept parallel to the contact bridge or bridges.
Its object is to separate, in a very simple manner, the circuit breaker part and the contactor part of the protective switching apparatus having at least one contact bridge.